Playdate – JenEric Movie Review

by

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2025 film Playdate.

Story

Another clueless man gets roped into a “spy” situation. It’s also a buddy comedy and I use the word comedy reluctantly. The entire story was surface level and didn’t make sense if you examined it at all. But it somehow managed to keep my attention.

Score: 0.5

Characters

Kevin James plays the same character he always does, and the rest of the cast plays idiots. No one, except the wife, does anything with any form of forethought or common sense.

I could almost forgive that if anyone in the movie was likeable.

Score: 0

Dialogue

Arg. There was nothing clever, quotable, or even interesting.

Score: 0

Visuals and Music

The chase and action scenes were well filmed and the choice of camera angles were solid. Most of the choreography was good but lacked logic.

The music was acceptable and did its job.

Score: 0.5

Fun

I was excited because I like Alan Ritchson as Reacher but honestly even his natural charisma wasn’t enough to make the movie watchable.

The kids seemed to like it but the adults wanted to turn it off by the first thirty minutes.

Score: 0

Overall

A waste of talent, time, and an insult to comedy. The action is passable but this movie is bad. Don’t waste your time.

Final Score: 1 Stars out of 5

Shiny Math Rocks

by

Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

I love dice. I’ve been running tabletop role playing games for over twenty years and playing them for thirty. It’s fun and beyond creating a wonderful shared world with my friends, one of the things I love are the accessories, books, and especially dice.

I’m very fond of Adventure Dice. They have an awesome dice advent calendar each year.

The other day, I saw a post on reddit about using spice jars and racks to display and organize dice and quickly researched how to do it.

So I present to you my dice:

I’m very happy with them and now I even have room for more. 🙂

Do you like dice?

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Boring times

by

Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

I’m dealing with a multi-day migraine brought on by changing medication. It’ll be okay when things even out.

There’s a running joke since 2020 about wanting to live in precedented times. As much as I feel the past 10 years have been tumultuous, I don’t think it’s particularly different from the majority of human history.

I think a lot of people were just not paying attention. I will grant that the world seems afflicted by more cartoonish evil than previously.

I don’t have advice or deep insight, but I do know that this is the new precedented times and I’m hoping they don’t get any more apocalyptic.

Sorry, migraines don’t lend themselves to hopefulness. If there is hope, it’s in every person who’s trying to do something about the horrors. It’s a relentless enemy, but there are millions of people fighting for others, themselves, and for hope.

Be kind and stay safe,

Éric

 The Wrecking Crew – JenEric Movie Review

by

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2026 film The Wrecking Crew.

Story

Estranged siblings, crime syndicates, and lots of violence. It was ridiculously formulaic with little new added.

Score: 0

Characters

I think Momoa and Bautista could make any character likeable. They are naturally charismatic. I wish the movie leaned more into their humour and dynamic.

The rest of the cast was great and they all did a wonderful job making a family dynamic.

The British villain with a French name was ridiculously boring though.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The exposition was delivered in small bits between action scenes and fun quips, perfect for this type of movie. When the mains actually opened up, it was very well done.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

I found the fights focused a lot on shock instead of cool choreography but they didn’t use shaky cam.

The music was great.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The movie was fun but it’s definitely not for the faint of heart or kids. Both the 9yo and the 6yo were a little freaked out by the cheese grater incident. (We spent a lot of time talking through the stunts afterwards, which they loved.)

The adults liked it well enough but not sure we’d want to rewatch it.

Score: 1

Overall

A predictable action movie that relies solely on the charisma of its cast. Even though that charisma is massive, its still just an okay action movie.

Final Score: 3 Stars out of 5

Stranger Things

by

Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

I’ve watched Stranger Things for the past decade. Here are my basic feelings for each season.

Season 1

An excellent, atmospheric love story to the “kids on bikes” genre from the eighties. The kids are great and they didn’t feel the need to over-explain everything.

I find both Will and Mike kinda boring but the rest of the cast is good.

The adults are idiots and the teens are annoying.

5 Stars

Season 2

They tried a little too hard to get the same feel and try and expand the drama. It really showed how little they were prepared for a season 2 and made a lot of the season boring.

I liked the addition of Max, she came off as competent and not just the “girl” character. Erica is also pretty cool.

Still not a fan of Mike or WIll. The teens are a little better but Johnathan gives massive serial killer / incel vibes.

Truly despise the adults other than Bob. RIP.

2 Stars

Season 3

This season really went hard into the 80’s and was better for it. The whole gang is trying really hard to be normal kids.

Both Will and Mike are less annoying. Steve and Robin are by far my favourite story. The teens are getting more interesting.

I still can’t stand the adults. Murray however is okay.

4 Stars

Season 4

This is the season the writers did two stupid things. 1. obviously firing any editors and 2. realizing they can’t finish the show on vibes and atmosphere. The awkward length episodes and horribly shoehorned backstories made this a slog.

Still can’t stand Mike or the Byeres. They seem to oscillate between bad attempts at autism rep and just plain creepy.

Lucas finally starts to be his own character and his story with Max is kinda cute.

Steve, Robin, and Nancy are much more likeable. Eddie goes from a performative rebel to a real badass. His character was mishandled and it shows that they just wanted a martyr.

Robin and Nancy being awesome reporters was fun. I found it weird however that Robin changed personalities from season 3 to 4. Going from badass, sarcastic, and confident to a walking ad for AuDHD with anxiety.

I mostly speed up the show when it was time for the adults to be idiots again. I may have skipped it if it wasn’t for chaos Murray.

2 Stars

Season 5

This season showed what happens when writers don’t have a plan. They tried really hard to clean up the backstory and get everything together.

The “age up” of Holly was lazy writing when they could have used Erica or introduced another kid. That being said, the actress killed the roll and took a boring story and made it interesting.

After 2 seasons of giving Max interesting stories, they basically turned her into a spirit guide/plot convenience.

There’s been a lot of hate given to Will’s coming out but it felt more authentic than a lot of the other parts. It was quick and awkward but that’s what coming out often is. Still can’t stand the kid. Mike is neither likeable nor interesting. Dustin actually has character development which is nice.

Most of the teens are likeable now. Badass Nancy is pretty awesome.

The adults are still insufferable and I’m sorry they didn’t die. I wonder what happened to Murray.

How the hell did they manage to bring in Linda Hamilton and have her villain be so uninteresting.

3 Stars

The Finale

Trite, overly sappy, and ambiguous. It reminded me a lot of the Fringe finale that was basically just giving the fans what they wanted.

It’s also very appropriate for the show since the whole thing feels like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign from a pantser DM. Which isn’t surprising, since a lot of the beats were based off the D&D (I’m old and I refuse to call it DnD!) adventures with Vecna as an antagonist.

The ambiguity of the ending for certain characters reeks of leaving the door open for a reunion movie or series in 10 years.

It also doesn’t show us the characters grieving and getting over the multitude of deaths.

Overall

This series is uneven both in its storytelling and its characters. It’s a fantasy of nostalgia written by people who have only known the decade from movies and TV. There was no plan and it shows. Throughout the series, D&D is treated with more respect than any of the characters.

There is some nice character development when the actors were given input.

I’m left with an overwhelming feeling that I could write better. (And I plan on doing so.)

3 Stars out of 5

Do you disagree?

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

All Good Things…

by

Hello Family, Friends, and Fans;

In 2009, I decided to write a story about a young girl who finds mittens in the snow and discovers that they are transformed people. It started as a young middle grade but eventually settled on a YA for 10+.

Just over ten years ago I signed a contract with Renaissance Press. They went on to publish the next 3 books in the series. Renaissance was a wonderful home for my series and I appreciate everything they’ve done.

The Bad News

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and the series rights have returned to me. It’s sad. I hate change and endings.

A Study in Aether

The Good News

The series is not dead yet. I have signed a contract with River City Siren Press for the entire series.

We’ll be republishing the books with updated covers and updated editing. I’m amazed at how fast this is going.

The Other News

That means it’ll take a little while to get all four of the originals republished, but hopefully I’ll have book 5 ready by then.

For those who have been here since I started this publishing journey, thank you!

For those who are new, welcome and also thank you!

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Spot the Changes: Faymous edition

by

Sometimes changes need to be made to the cover after the colour is done. We try to catch as many as we can with the sketch, but the colour adds so much detail that didn’t always pop up in the sketch. In the case of Faymous, there were seven differences between the first colour and the final cover. Can you spot them all? Don’t scroll down until you’re ready for the answer.

Faymous by Jen and Éric Desmarais is coming soon!
Cover art by Pinkpiggy93
eBook
Paperback link to come